The Runes are native to northern European cultures and are over
2000 years old. They are an ancient sacred alphabetic script, each
of whose letters possesses a meaningful name as well as a
signifying sound. They were used for legal documents, writing
poetry, inscriptions, and most importantly divination. Yet they
never evolved as a spoken language.
In the ancient world, divination was attributed to the activity of
gods and spirits. In northern Europe the highest of all gods was
Odin, and it was Odin that discovered the runes. In Norse tradition
Odin is the Lord of inspiration, prophecy, secret communication,
and wisdom.
Runes have inspired people throughout the centuries; among the
inspired ones was J.R.R. Tolkien in the writing of his fantasies.
Tolkien had a special interest in runes. His use of middle-earth
itself was derived from the Midguard of the Norse nine-world model.
When The Hobbit was first published in 1937 the cover had
Anglo-Saxon runes on it. Readers of The Hobbit will recognize these
lines from the opening monographs of that work: "Runes were old
letters originally used for cutting or scratching on what, stone or
metal, and were thin and angular. At the time of this tale only the
Dwarves made regular use of them, especially for private or secret
records. Their runes are in this book represented by English runes,
which are known now to few people." Runes and Norse myths were used
as well in The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and the many
volumes of the Book of Lost Tales.
Runes connect with your body, mind, spirit, and the environment,
and their inherent nature makes them relevant and useful today.
Runes are singular energies that permeate throughout all things.
This means that the same runic energy that came into play at the
beginning of all things in this universe still exists. We can find
this energy within anything and everything that exists about us.
The ancients had this deeper understanding of the runes. They did
not believe that they existed only in special places or specific
times. Rather, they said the runes exist eternally within the whole
world about us. The runes are as applicable today as they were
thousands of years ago.
For more information download my free book A
Guide to the Runes
Original contents of the cache are a complete set of Runes
made
from bone with Travel Bug tags to begin their adventure
traveling
around the world.